Leah Giarratano: Voodoo Doll

Charlie launched herself into his arms.

'We're late again, Daddy!' She sounded thrilled. She pretty much always sounded that way.

'Well, you're just going to have to drive fast then,' he said to her beaming face. He turned her around in his arms and deposited her in a chair at the table.

'Go and get dressed, babe,' said Isobel, trailing her fingertips carefully over his bruised face as she passed. 'I'll take over here.' She smoothed a dark lock of hair into place. Damn he loved her wearing that suit.

Joss groaned and headed towards the stairs.

It'd been ten years, and he still couldn't get used to wearing a suit. When he'd become a civilian again in ninety-seven, he'd thought he would never find a job. Do your twenty years, everyone told him. Get an army pension and take a while to make your next move. It wasn't a bad suggestion. But then again, no one but Isobel and his former commanding officers knew about his medical discharge on psychiatric grounds. People thought his tour of Rwanda had changed him; they had no idea how much.

Turned out, though, that his skills were in high demand in civvy street. The ability to lead, proven discipline and analytical expertise – he'd had a choice of jobs. He'd taken a role as fraud investigator for an insurance company, because he thought it sounded boring and he wouldn't have to work in a team. He'd kept these motivations out of his comments in the job interview.

He walked quickly past the mirror, avoiding catching a glimpse of his black eye. The intern at the hospital had told him that they could operate on the cheekbone, insert a screw. Nerve damage was a risk, though. Joss figured his cheek had healed okay the last time he'd fractured it, in Rwanda. He shook his head a little to disperse the memory. Forget surgery, he'd told the doctor. Well, you probably should avoid breaking it again, the specialist had returned dryly.

Downstairs, he got Isobel to do his tie. Six years of private-school uniform had made him an expert at tying knots, but each morning saw him feigning helplessness to his wife. Isobel, amused and frustrated, especially when they were late, like today, would expertly tie the knot, kiss him on the mouth. For two minutes, every morning during this ritual, he breathed her in. A couple of times he'd undone the tie, turned back to her with a look of shocked innocence, like, how did that happen?

Not today, though. They really were late.

As soon as the car turned the corner, carrying Charlie to preschool and Isobel to her office in North Sydney, Joss was again lost in images of the robbery. Isobel had wanted him to take some time off, get some counselling, let his face heal. But the last thing he needed was to sit around with nothing to do but think. She knew him well enough to let it go.

Preparing for work last night, he'd presented Isobel with some scenarios to explain his black eye to the other insurance assessors: a water-skiing accident, a fistfight with his mother-in-law; caught up in the latest home invasion? He thought he'd go with Isobel's suggestion in the end: I fell off a ladder, painting the house.

He joined the queue for the bus into the city. Usually, he liked catching the bus, people-watching, the relaxed pace of it. It made more sense than getting a lift with Isobel on her way to work, and there was plenty to distract him from his memories of the past: Balmain looked nothing like Rwanda.

Since the thing at Andy Wu's, however, his mind had hardly visited Africa at all.

Those eyes. He'd never have believed you could recognise someone you hadn't seen in twenty-three years just from two eyes staring out of a balaclava. But he had.

Henry Nguyen. Cutter.

Until his first tour of duty, until the Kibeho massacre in Rwanda, Joss's nightmares had all been about the last day he'd seen Cutter.

At age thirteen, two days after the last time he had seen Cutter, Joss and his mum were out the front of Fairfield shopping centre, waiting to cross the road. His mum had told him that they had a meeting scheduled with Jesus. His whole life she'd been telling him stuff like that. He was eight before he realised that people didn't really come into their house each night to poison their food; he'd stayed up one night to check. So, when she wanted to take him to talk to Jesus, the only thing he was worried about was that she didn't start the meeting right there on the pavement in front of Franklins. But she'd grabbed his hand and run into the street. He'd pulled away.

How could he have pulled away?

He used to get so embarrassed when she showed up at the school, wasted, falling asleep in the principal's office. Or when she'd accuse him of being Satan's messenger in front of his friends, screaming into his face, froth on her lips.

Is that why he'd let go of her hand?

Thing is, he knew deep down that he couldn't have known she would run into the path of a car. But a little voice inside asked, couldn't you have guessed? Maybe you knew she was going to do it? Why did you let go of her hand?

His mother had survived, but she'd been scheduled to a psych hospital, and Joss's grandparents had stepped in. He'd moved from Cabramatta to Mosman, changed schools, and had never seen Cutter or any of the others since.

Until Andy's house, the previous Saturday night.

Joss knew Cutter would not have been overjoyed to renew their acquaintance. The feeling was mutual. But that was not the problem.

If Cutter figured out that Joss had recognised him, Cutter would come and find him.

He had to.

Andy Wu would never walk again, and Joss could put Cutter away.

THE FEELINGS STARTED the day before, and built until he cut. And if something went wrong, if things didn't go like he planned, it hurt. Bad.

When he was a kid, Henry Nguyen would manage the feelings by slicing his forearms; carving crosses and snakes into his skin. Only when he'd cut to screaming point would the sexual tension ease. The kids who could watch him called him Cutter. The kids who couldn't, never spoke to him at all, kept their heads down when he walked past.

Nowadays, there was nothing he could inflict on himself to stop the feelings. He'd long moved on from that. Blood was still an aphrodisiac, but now he only started feeling normal again when others screamed.

Just lately, though, he hadn't been feeling right until the screaming stopped.

Guns had never done it for him. The pissweak and petrified had brought him plenty over the years, but he'd passed them on again. What do guns get you? Moments of respect, and then you've got to do something. Shoot, or move on. Shoot, and it's all over. Move on and well, what the fuck good was that?

Tonight was different, though. The hit planned for Capitol Hill was on a gun collector. A suburban Rambo getting through his midlife crisis with a new Harley and a shooting-range membership. Word was, he was cashed up, and had a nine-piece collection. Licensed and locked down, of course, but Cutter was looking forward to cracking the safe.

Persuading the owner to open it for him.

His men felt they needed the guns. Tried to tell him only guns could get them through doors now, only guns could convince people to open up and shut up. He saw them look away while he was working. He knew they didn't have his love for the knife.

He didn't understand this about his crew. In fact, he'd given up trying to figure people out when he was in kindergarten. He knew there was a deficit in his makeup. Empathy. He had figured out what it was supposed to be, understood the concept, he just couldn't find the switch to turn it on. He figured it was the same as colourblindness. Some people have it. Some people don't.

Some counsellor clown had tried to teach him empathy once – try to put yourself in the other person's shoes, think how they might be feeling. Best counselling he'd ever had. Helped him imagine just what might hurt the most. He'd used the tip several times to hone his technique over the years.